extension
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "extension", 9-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "extension" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "extension" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
extension is aEnglishnoun. It means: The act of extending; a stretching out; enlargement in length, breadth, or time; an increase. Pronounced /ɪkˈstɛnʃən/. It ranks #3,231 in English word frequency. Often confused with extensive and extrusion.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | extension |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɪkˈstɛnʃən/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #3,231 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for extension is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪkˈstɛnʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,231 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 21 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for extension, with forms such as "etxension", "exetnsion", and "extenison". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "extensive", "extrusion", "expansion", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English extensioun, from Old French estension, from Latin extensiō, extensiōnem. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is extension, spelled E-X-T-E-N-S-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The act of extending; a stretching out; enlargement in length, breadth, or time; an increase.
- 2The state of being extended.
- 3That property of a body by which it occupies a portion of space (or time, e.g. "spatiotemporal extension").
- 4A short exact sequence 1→H→E→G→1, or the group E therein.
- 5A short exact sequence 0→B→E→A→0, or the object E therein.
- 6A part of a building that has been added onto the original.
- 7An outgrowth; a part of something that extends its capabilities.
- 8Capacity of a concept or general term to include a greater or smaller number of objects; — correlative of intension.
- 9semantic widening, broadening of meaning
- 10A written engagement on the part of a creditor, allowing a debtor further time to pay a debt.
- 11The operation of stretching a broken bone so as to bring the fragments into the same straight line.
- 12An exercise in which an arm or leg is straightened against resistance.
- 13A simple offensive action, consisting of extending the weapon arm forward.
- 14A numerical code used to indicate a specific telephone in a telecommunication network.
- 15Ellipsis of file extension.
- 16An optional software component that adds functionality to an application.
- 17The set of tuples of values that, used as arguments, satisfy the predicate.
- 18A kind of derivative morpheme applied to verbs in Bantu languages.
- 19The ideal in the codomain generated by the image of the given ideal under the given homomorphism.
- 20University programs that are targeted at the broader (usually adults) community whose participants are not full-time enrolled students.
- 21Clipping of hair extension, nail extension, or eyelash extension.
Etymology
From Middle English extensioun, from Old French estension, from Latin extensiō, extensiōnem.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etxension,exetnsion,extenison,extennsion,extensino,extensionn,extensoin,extenssion,extention,extesnion,extnesion,exttension,exxtension,xetension
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for extension
Misspelling Variants of "extension"
Frequency rank: #3,231 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: